WASHINGTON—Conservation and animal welfare groups urged the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today to deny permits to hunters seeking to import elephant trophies into the United States from Zimbabwe and Namibia. Under a settlement with the Dallas Safari Club, the agency must decide on eight pending...
He never threatened a person, or damaged crops, or entered a village. But in November, after a three-year struggle to save his life, Riff Raff, a beloved bull elephant who helped Humane Society International researchers pioneer ways for humans and his species to coexist, was put down. His crime...

Seven years ago, Minnesota attorney Jack Fay went to Kenya to meet the orphaned baby elephant he had been “fostering” through online donations. The HSUS state council member waited at the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, on the edge of Nairobi, as Naipoki’s keepers brought her back from a day in the forest...
MARYLAND—Today the Maryland legislature passed a bill that would ban the sale of parts and products made from imperiled wildlife species. The legislation is now headed to Gov. Larry Hogan for his signature. The bill (HB 52/SB 381) prohibits the trade in Maryland of products made from 15 at-risk...
WASHINGTON—Today, the Humane Society of the United States and Humane Society International released a shocking analysis of the 2021 Dallas Safari Club annual convention, taking place virtually Feb. 10 to 14. Trophy hunters, hunting outfitters and other businesses from around the world will gather...
BRUSSELS—A new report published today—the week marking the six-year anniversary of the killing of Cecil the lion in Zimbabwe by an American trophy hunter—reveals that the European Union is the world’s second biggest hunting trophy importer after the United States. EU Trophy Hunting by the Numbers...

It was the shot heard around the world. An American trophy hunter shot and severely injured Cecil with an arrow after he was lured outside Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe with elephant carcass bait. About 10 hours later, the hunting party tracked him down. A second arrow ended Cecil’s life. The...
NEW YORK—A federal court in New York on Friday upheld the state’s ban on sales and in-store displays of elephant and mammoth ivory and rhino horn—rejecting claims that the ban was unconstitutional. The Art and Antique Dealers League of America and the National Antique and Art Dealers Association of...

A decade ago, few of us could have predicted the monumental progress for animals we would see in the years ahead. The U.S. government effectively banned the use of chimpanzees in research; Ringling Bros. & Barnum and Bailey Circus removed elephants from its shows and ultimately closed for good...
A shocking undercover investigation recently conducted in Iowa by the Humane Society of the United States and Humane Society International found what can only be described as a massive garbage bin of the trophy hunting industry. A four-day event where thousands of animals – including at least 557...
WASHINGTON—Today the Humane Society of the United States and Humane Society International released a disturbing undercover investigation revealing the potentially deceptive sale of products made from elephant ivory by 20 sellers across Maryland. The investigation, which took place between July and...

When Sharon Young visited manatees in a warm spring off Florida’s Homosassa River in the late 1990s, she followed the guide’s instructions: Observe and don’t approach or get in the manatees’ way. Like most of us, Young—who now works as the HSUS marine wildlife protection field director—is fascinated...


The white Bengal tiger paces back and forth, back and forth in a squat cage on the edge of the show ring. The cage is little longer than the tiger's body. The clock ticks down to the start of three scheduled performances at this fair in Pennsylvania. Potted palms and wooden masks decorate the ring...